Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) has been widely applied in foam cushions, heat insulation panels, electronic potting gels, high-performance adhesives, surface coatings, packaging, surface sealants, and synthetic fibers, due to its flexibility and high elasticity.
Polyol, which used in manufacturing thermoplastic polyurethane, is generally prepared from petroleum products. However, in view of environmental issues, more and more industrial manufacturing methods that try to replace petroleum products with biomass products have been developed. In these, lignin as a biomass polyol can be extracted easily from food-grade and non-food grade biomass, such as agricultural waste or biomass in the forest. However, when subjecting lignin to directly react with isocyanate for preparing thermoplastic polyurethane, the reaction product would lose thermoplastic property due to cross-linking.
Therefore, the industry needs a novel lignin thermoplastic polyurethane to overcome the aforementioned problems.